The present invention relates to a catheter, in particular a catheter for collecting a plurality of samples from within a length of a blood vessel. The present invention further relates to associated methods, in particular a method for generating a data profile for one or more biomarkers emanating from the wall of a blood vessel, a method of profiling a length of a blood vessel to determine the pathological or physiological state of the blood vessel wall, and a method of sampling blood in vivo from a blood vessel.
It is known from WO 2006/126002 to take a plurality of samples of blood from along a length of a blood vessel. The samples are taken from near to the vessel wall and can be analysed so as to determine concentrations of biomarkers that are present there and hence to determine positions of vulnerable plaque, etc. along the blood vessel along the length of the sampling part of the catheter.
Although such earlier arrangements are very useful and effective, they present difficulties depending on the configuration of the catheter and the location and/or size of the vessel under test. For example, it is not always practical to manoeuvre a sample collection area of the catheter into position near to the vessel wall, due to the varying geometry of the vessel and constraints in positioning of the catheter. The present application seeks to obviate these difficulties and to improve the consistency of results and obtain closer correlation between the actual positions of sources of biomarkers and the positions at which those biomarkers are first sampled. As detailed below, this is achieved by inducing a flow from the boundary layer towards a sample collection area.